Wiggins: There are a lot of tired bodies out there

interview16.07.2012Stage 15- Samatan / Pau

When asked about the attitude of Mark Cavendish, at the end of a day that was well suited to a rider of his strengths. Wiggins was full of praise.

“Mark has been fantastic these last two and a half weeks. He's been so committed to my cause – to the yellow jersey – and he's a great champion and a great friend. Obviously there is still the stage to Paris for him and we're going to lay it down in Paris for him and try and get him the win there. He's also got the Olympic road race which he's been quite open about: that's his main objective this year, so it's a shame that he hasn't had the chance to race for more stage wins but in the end we've got a difficult task on our hands to try and win the yellow jersey. So far, he's played a big part in that. We've seen him going back for bottles and, yesterday, he tried really hard to get over that first climb with us... he's also been an absolute gentleman this week.“I thought the attacks at the start wouldn't last so long; it went on for almost two hours but the terrain took its toll. There are a lot of tired bodies out there and eventually the break went and it was pretty straightforward. We started [to chase] but we were only willing to use two guys and we were hoping that Lotto would chuck two in, that GreenEdge would chuck two in... but they weren't interested so that was the end of that. “There was a good group ahead with a lead of five minutes already so it was going to be difficult.”